Image credit: Damage to roads from the Hooskanadan Slide in March 2019, by Oregon Department of Transportation via Flickr, CC BY 2.0
Editor's note: The Resilient Roads Roundtable promotes exploration and adoption of a broad set of innovative materials and methods proven to support road resilience. The National Center for Asphalt Technology is a participant in the Roundtable as asphalt continues to be a strong contributor in the sustainable, resilient roads effort.
It’s still summer, yet 2021 has been one for the books for extreme weather events.
This holds a myriad of implications for people working in all industries, but it’s especially troubling for how we build roads. Human-caused climate change is driving both the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like wildfires, hurricanes, and floods. If we’re to adapt to the changing climate, we’ll need to build resilient roads that are designed to last.
The National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) at Auburn University recently published NCAT Report 21-02 to address this issue. Funded by NAPA, the report offers a literature review and summary of findings from the 2019 Asphalt Resiliency Workshop hosted by NCAT. With a number of conclusions about how asphalt can contribute to resilience, the report also includes a detailed list of resilience-boosting recommendations for industry, agency, and academia.
For more information, you can read the report for yourself below.